*

There were formalities. With the jury out, Paul adjudicated the verdicts, officially pronouncing Zeigler guilty four times. Law required that the convict be fingerprinted in open court; after the reading of each count, he was brought forward and his prints were affixed to the judgment forms. Then he was taken away, remanded to the sheriff.

Paul had kept the courtroom closed until the jury could leave. Now he recessed, and the doors opened. Mary Van Deventer, who had been seated behind the defense table, was distraught as she ran out. Leslie Gift followed her, to make sure that she didn't try driving home in that condition.

 Terry Hadley was stunned and near tears as he walked out of the courthouse. Years later he told an interviewer that hearing one's client convicted of first degree murder was an experience he would not wish on his worst enemy.

Outside, the sky was black and glowering. Thunder grumbled. The afternoon sultriness was resolving itself into a monstrous thunderstorm that rocked the city throughout the evening. It was a huge storm even by the standards of Florida's tropical atmosphere, so violent that it imprinted itself on the memories of many who were there. One more reason to remember July 2, 1976.

It might truly be said that thunder of another sort was grumbling on Tommy Zeigler's horizon. The lead story in the afternoon newspapers was datelined Washington, D.C.: earlier in the day, the U.S. Supreme had specifically declared that because of new sentencing guidelines, Florida's death penalty was now constitutionally acceptable.